The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky (the reader ebook txt) 📖

another town, how we would buy a horse and cart. ‘We will put mamma and your sisters inside, we will cover them up and we’ll walk, you shall have a lift now and then, and I’ll walk beside, for we must take care of our horse, we can’t all ride. That’s how we’ll go.’ He was enchanted at that, most of all at the thought of having a horse and driving him. For of course a Russian boy is born among horses. We chattered a long while. Thank God, I thought, I have diverted his mind and comforted him.

“That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but last night everything was changed. He had gone to school in the morning, he came back depressed, terribly depressed. In the evening I took him by the hand and we went for a walk; he would not talk. There was a wind blowing and no sun, and a feeling of autumn; twilight was coming on. We walked along, both of us depressed. ‘Well, my boy,’ said I, ‘how about our setting off on our travels?’ I thought I might bring him back to our talk of the day before. He didn’t answer, but I felt his fingers trembling in my hand. Ah, I thought, it’s a bad job; there’s something fresh. We had reached the stone where we are now. I sat down on the stone. And in the air there were lots of kites flapping and whirling. There were as many as thirty in sight. Of course, it’s just the season for the kites. ‘Look, Ilusha,’ said I, ‘it’s time we got out our last year’s kite again. I’ll mend it, where have you put it away?’ My boy made no answer. He looked away and turned sideways to me. And then a gust of wind blew up the sand. He suddenly fell on me, threw both his little arms round my neck and held me tight. You know, when children are silent and proud, and try to keep back their tears when they are in great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall in streams. With those warm streams of tears, he suddenly wetted my face. He sobbed and shook as though he were in convulsions, and squeezed up against me as I sat on the stone. ‘Father,’ he kept crying, ‘dear father, how he insulted you!’ And I sobbed too. We sat shaking in each other’s arms. ‘Ilusha,’ I said to him, ‘Ilusha darling.’ No one saw us then. God alone saw us, I hope He will record it to my credit. You must thank your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch. No, sir, I won’t thrash my boy for your satisfaction.”

He had gone back to his original tone of resentful buffoonery. Alyosha felt though that he trusted him, and that if there had been someone else in his, Alyosha’s place, the man would not have spoken so openly and would not have told what he had just told. This encouraged Alyosha, whose heart was trembling on the verge of tears.

“Ah, how I would like to make friends with your boy!” he cried. “If you could arrange it⁠—”

“Certainly, sir,” muttered the captain.

“But now listen to something quite different!” Alyosha went on. “I have a message for you. That same brother of mine, Dmitri, has insulted his betrothed, too, a noble-hearted girl of whom you have probably heard. I have a right to tell you of her wrong; I ought to do so, in fact, for hearing of the insult done to you and learning all about your unfortunate position, she commissioned me at once⁠—just now⁠—to bring you this help from her⁠—but only from her alone, not from Dmitri, who has abandoned her. Nor from me, his brother, nor from anyone else, but from her, only from her! She entreats you to accept her help.⁠ ⁠… You have both been insulted by the same man. She thought of you only when she had just received a similar insult from him⁠—similar in its cruelty, I mean. She comes like a sister to help a brother in misfortune.⁠ ⁠… She told me to persuade you to take these two hundred roubles from her, as from a sister, knowing that you are in such need. No one will know of it, it can give rise to no unjust slander. There are the two hundred roubles, and I swear you must take them unless⁠—unless all men are to be enemies on earth! But there are brothers even on earth.⁠ ⁠… You have a generous heart⁠ ⁠… you must see that, you must,” and Alyosha held out two new rainbow-colored hundred-rouble notes.

They were both standing at the time by the great stone close to the fence, and there was no one near. The notes seemed to produce a tremendous impression on the captain. He started, but at first only from astonishment. Such an outcome of their conversation was the last thing he expected. Nothing could have been farther from his dreams than help from anyone⁠—and such a sum!

He took the notes, and for a minute he was almost unable to answer, quite a new expression came into his face.

“That for me? So much money⁠—two hundred roubles! Good heavens! Why, I haven’t seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us! And she says she is a sister.⁠ ⁠… And is that the truth?”

“I swear that all I told you is the truth,” cried Alyosha.

The captain flushed red.

“Listen, my dear, listen. If I take it, I shan’t be behaving like a scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan’t be a scoundrel? No, Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen,” he hurried, touching Alyosha with both his hands. “You are persuading me to take it, saying that it’s a sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart won’t you feel contempt for me if I take it, eh?”

“No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan’t! And no one will ever know but me⁠—I, you and she, and one other lady, her great